James Baldwin, author of the screenplay One Day, When I Was Lost: A Scenario, was also a preacher, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, playwright, and freedom fighter. He was born in Harlem in New York City on August 2, 1924. During the 1960s, at the peak of his political activism and his literary influence, he was considered, writes John Stevenson for the Boston Book Review, "a prophet of the decade's black liberation struggle."

Baldwin not only aided the Civil Rights Movement by helping with the voter registration crusade in Jackson, Mississippi, he was also one of the most widely read authors during that decade, influencing both white and black audiences. Baldwin considered Martin Luther King, Jr. a friend. Like King, Baldwin had a dream for those turbulent but inspiring times. He was fueled by a vision that the 1960s were the most opportune time for all the races in America to come...